My salsa recipe

Before I post the exact recipe, you have to keep in mind that everything varies depending on the sizes of the tomatoes, peppers, etc.  My goal was to get it to taste like one of our local restaurants, Rey Azteca. I do think I nailed it, however as the salsa sits it gets a little bit spicier, especially after canning. So keeping that in mind, you may want to add a little bit less pepper if you are canning, or if you're OK with it being a little spicy, go for it. 

Here's what you need:

15 tomatoes (approx)

2 jalapeño peppers, seeded/deveined

3 small onion, or about 1 1/2 medium

3 cloves of garlic

3 "stems" of cilantro, remove the stems

2 tsp salt

2 tap pepper

1/4 cup of lemon juice

Use a food grinder or food processor and remove the stems and most of the skins from the tomatoes. You can probably use the boiling method to take the skins off the tomatoes. (Drop the tomatoes in boiling water for three minutes, remove them and put in cool water, and the skins peel right off, remove the stems). I have a new food grinder, so I was super excited to use that, using the salsa filter.

After removing the seeds and veins from the peppers, finely chop them. If you want it spicier, leave the veins and seeds in the peppers and chop them that way.

 

After removing the skins from the onions, chopped them the same way as the peppers. If you like a chunkier salsa, you don't have to chop them quite as much, but we wanted to make it as smooth as possible.

If you have a garlic press, you can press the garlic, but mine is missing so I actually just peeled and chopped garlic also. 

Remove the stems, and cut up the cilantro. I used a pair of kitchen shears and it worked perfect, just keep chopping to make it fine. 

Mix the peppers, onions, and garlic with the tomatoes. Add in your salt and pepper and cilantro. The last step would be adding the lemon juice, to help preserve it longer. Mix it all together. 

Basically at this point your salsa is ready to go. For me, I filled 2 pint jars and for jelly size jars. You could probably put it in a container and stored in the refrigerator, or maybe even bag it and freeze if you don't want to can. If you do decide to can it, for the salsa into the jars, wipe the top and seal with a two-piece lid. Process in a water bath for 15 minutes. Remove and let cool, any jars that do not seal, stick in the refrigerator to use immediately.

Voila!  Give it a go and let me know how it turns out! If you are new to canning and have any questions, let me know. I am by no means a professional, but happy to help where I can (lol... Perhaps pun intended)! 

~Dawn, Fit Mama Four Life